1. Buy a food scale.

Those of us who buy in bulk for better quality and savings have a tendency to cook the way we buy.  Once you’ve been eating naturally for awhile though, the volume of food you eat reduces markedly, and French restaurant portion sizes really do fill you up.  Until your cook’s eye is recalibrated to your new appetite level, you’ll need to weigh things to know how much you’re really cooking.

2. Shop for fresh salad vegetables, and milk once a week.  Shop for other things only once a month.

Lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes tend to turn faster, so buy them weekly.  Other things will last the month, so don’t spend a lot of time wandering around the store.  You’ll end up buying too many things you don’t need that may end up wasted.  Go on a surgical salad run weekly, and get out of the store or market.

3.  Decontaminate and store things properly.

A lot of food gets thrown away because of grain beetle and moth infestation.  Grains, beans, or other dry foods should ideally be placed in the freezer for a couple of days in deep freeze, or a week in a regular freezer before being stored in an airtight plastic or glass container.  If you can’t manage this, store as much as you can in the refrigerator.  Freezing will usually kill grain bugs, and refrigeration will slow or stop their development if there are any eggs.

Some things with a fast turnover that are fresh from the supermarket will not be contaminated, but they should also not be left in the cabinet in bags.  Moth larvae can chew right through plastic bags.  So bags of pasta should be emptied into a clean, airtight jug or jar as soon as you get them home.  Better yet, if your container can accomodate it, put the stuff in your own bags from home, and put some cracked black pepper in the bottom of the container.  Then put the bags in it.  Bugs hate black pepper.

Once every three months or so, take everything out of your cabinets and clean them.  Clean them early if you notice any food has spilled in them.  The spills will attract bugs that will lay eggs around the openings of your containers, waiting for an opportunity to get inside.

Another possible problem with storing food is larger bugs like roaches or mice.  For this, I prefer the best kind of pest control leftovers can buy: cats.

4.  Freeze your nuts, and refrigerate dried fruits.

Nuts go stale when left at room temperature.  Freeze them to keep their flavor and texture.  Best is to buy them raw, and dry roast them in a cast iron pan just before using them.

For dried fruit, the fridge is the best cool dry place there is.

5.  Divide packs or portions of meat you won’t use all at once.

If you don’t eat a whole chicken at once, cut it into pieces, and put portions into separate bags or separate with doubled wax paper in a container.  Separate bulks of ground meat or roasts into portions you or your family will likely finish in a meal.  If you buy sandwich meats, put half a pack of what will be in use in the fridge, and freeze the rest until the first half is gone.

6.  Give perishables priority.

Don’t make tuna casserole when you have leftover chicken in the fridge.  Don’t use the canned sauerkraut when you’ve got a nice fresh cabbage waiting to become a salad.

7.  Use leftover grains to make quiches, omelettes, or croquettes.

Tons of leftover rice, couscous, pasta, mashed potatoes and other grains and starches get thrown away because either too much was made, or there’s not quite enough left to make a serving.  Use rice to make fried rice cakes.  Leftover couscous can be whisked with some eggs, veggies, and chopped meat to make a nice quiche or omelette.  Either can be used to make some tuna or leftover chicken croquettes.

Leftover grits or solet can be cut into bars, pan fried with a little butter or lard, and sprinkled with some parmesian as a nice polenta like side dish.  Leftover oatmeal can be fried and then drizzled with a little honey or maple syrup.  Breakfast lost becomes dessert found.

8.  New in the back, old in the front.

When restocking your fridge or cabinets, bring older things to the front so you’ll be reminded to use them first.

9.  Make leftover soup.

If you have a little leftover meat, vegetables, and rice or another grain, and none of it’s quite enough to make a meal, then put it all together, season it accordingly, and make it the soup course.

10.  At the table, follow the one cup rule.

Overeating is nearly impossible once your appetite resets itself.  So eat until you’re feeling about 80% full, and then stop.  Until then though, portion sizes of each item that isn’t a vegetable should be about a cup full.  Seconds, if they’re needed, should be a half to a quarter cup.  This will keep any leftovers in the pot instead of getting scraped off of your plate.

For more tips and recipes, check out Love Food, Hate Waste.